APPLETON, Victor. Tom Swift and his Great Oil Gusher. Or the Treasure of Goby Farm. NY: Grosset & Dunlap (ca. 1928). 12mo, iv 210pp + [10] advts. Light brown cloth pictorially stamped in black and red. Half-tone frontispiece by W.S. Rogers. A clean, bright copy with spine ends and corners slightly rubbed, lower front corner a tad bumped, gift inscription on front free endpaper and owner’s address sticker on verso of frontispiece, in original color pictorial dust jacket (slight edgewear, some slight rubbing and soiling to rear panel, spine panel lightly sunned).

Very early printing having dust jacket ads listing only four additional titles. Swift Construction has undertaken a contract to make oil well drilling equipment for a group of Texas wildcatters, who soon prove to be "shady characters" intent on swindling Swift Construction. When one of the cads starts snuffling around Tom's sweetie, Mary Nestor, trouble starts to brew. Tom comes up with a new style of drilling rig that cuts through rock 3 times faster than other drills and sets off to Texas to try the new device.